Chapter 29. The End of the Trail

The trail led straight towards the place that drew the harbingers of death, some circling, others already on the ground, smaller ones waiting and watching as the larger ones tore at something. Verilard gritted his teeth and mounted his pony, leaning forwards to urge the beast  swiftly towards the spot. It might not be the lad, he told himself, and he might be spoiling the trail riding so incautiously, but if it were the lad... well, if it were not the lad they’d cast about for the trail again after driving off the birds.

The smaller carrion crows lifted into the sky at their approach, but the larger ones, buzzards and kites, spread their wings and extended their necks to express their displeasure in loud mewing calls. Stopping short of the site, for he could not bring himself to spoil the ground, Veri slid from his pony’s back, pulling off his cloak and whipping it menacingly, shouting at the creatures until they hopped and flapped away, taking to the air to escape him. Veri frightened his pony as well and the beast reared up at the end of its rein, eyes showing white, while Ferdi fought his own pony for control. Veri had to calm his pony before he could toss the rein to Ferdi.

 ‘Stand here with them,’ he said, and stalked away without waiting for an acknowledgment.

The dried-apple tarts lay uneasily on his stomach as he began to read the ground. Wild swine, it looked like. They were shy and retiring for the most part, but always bad-tempered, and they’d eat just about anything that didn’t eat them first. Veri himself had been treed a time or two by a pack of the creatures. He hunted them not by choice but by necessity, wily intelligent things that they were who could turn hunter into prey in a twinkling. When wild swine ranged too close to habited lands the Thain would declare a hunt, and afterwards there’d be roast boar and suckling pigs turning on spits over the great room hearth to recompense the hunters. Ah but it was a hard-won reward...

He found a bag, badly torn, that might have held bread and cheese, but what made his blood run cold was the torn and trampled cloak a few steps away. He picked it up slowly, balling it in his hands—and then Ferdi was there, for he’d hobbled the ponies and then ventured onto the ground, his eyes taking in the signs that Veri had been at pains to teach him over the past weeks. The teen grabbed the cloak away, burying his face in the fabric while his shoulders shook with silent sobs.

 ‘It’s his, then?’ Veri asked. The teen nodded, face still covered. Ferdi’s own father had given Pip the cloak the previous summer, a birthday present. Ferdibrand remembered the pride shining in Pip’s eyes as he’d helped his young cousin settle the fabric on his shoulders, “Fine as any the Thain might wear, away there in the Smials!”

 ‘Ah, lad,’ Veri breathed regretfully, then left the teen to his grief, trying to piece together the story. As he ranged farther, he saw the prints of boy and dog travelling together. He saw where the boy’s walk became a panicked run, where the dog turned to face the attackers, traced the battle itself on the roiled ground as best he could. Yet the only leavings he found had tattered black-and-white fur attached. The hogs had torn the dog to pieces in their fury, yet recognisable bits remained. He could see no remains of the lad, however.

He went to Ferdibrand, touching the lad’s shoulder. ‘I cannot find him,’ he said. ‘Come and help me look.’ Ferdi lowered the cloak slowly from his reddened eyes; Veri nodded. ‘There’s no trace,’ he said. ‘A dog, yes, but no lad.’

Veri knew the look that came then into the teen’s eyes; he felt it himself. Hope, yet not daring to hope. Ferdi turned to the nearby copse of trees then, scanning the branches eagerly. He caught hold of Veri’s arm, pointing with a trembling hand.

Caught high amongst the new-green of spring leaves, was that a bit of white? The hunters stumbled free of the churned up ground, running to the copse, no longer looking for tracks to follow.

Veri paused to finger the bark of a tree; the rubbing told him how great at least one of the creatures had been. A boar? Scrapings head-high to an adult hobbit on the trunk of another tree bespoke wicked, razor-sharp tusks.

Ferdi was already climbing, up, up to that speck of white in the high branches, so high that they creaked ominously beneath him as he reached his goal. It was, indeed, Pippin, the shirt not so white as it had seemed below, torn as it was and streaked with dirt. The lad clung to the tree, his head buried in his arms, and he did not move when Ferdi touched him, nor even at a light shake.

Ferdi found his voice. ‘Pip,’ he said. ‘Pippin! Do you hear me?’ The lad did not stir. His skin was cold to the touch and clammy, but he breathed and Ferdi took comfort in that fact. ‘Pip,’ he said again. ‘Pip, we’re here to take you home, safe.’ He tried to loosen the lad’s grip on the tree but could not. Helpless he sat back, stymied.

Veri waited and wondered below. His wonder grew as Ferdi called down to him—called! ‘He’s alive, but I cannot get him to move.’

 ‘Wait!’ he shouted back. ‘I’ll come up to you anon.’ He ran from the copse, to where his hobbled pony eagerly cropped the grass. Seizing the horn from the saddle pad, he blew a great blast, and another. He waited until he heard an answering horn, then blew two more long blasts. Another horn sounded closer. He repeated the call until he was sure they were headed in the right direction. Hanging the horn on his belt he ran back to the little wood. ‘They’re coming!’ he said. ‘Hold fast, Ferdi!’

Slower than the teen, for he was old enough to be Ferdi’s father, he began to climb. ‘They’re coming,’ he repeated when he reached the others. He had to stop a few branches lower, being older and heavier, but if he stretched he could just touch Pippin’s icy-cold feet. ‘Two nights in the cold, and fear and grief in the bargain,’ he muttered. He unslung his cloak from his shoulders and tossed it up to Ferdi, who wrapped it about the lad, adding his own cloak for good measure.

Somehow Ferdi managed to pry loose the stiff, cold fingers, though it took time and patience. One of the arriving rescuers climbed up with a coil of rope over his shoulder, and they used that to lower Pippin safely to where the branches were thick enough to take the combined weight of the lad and a rescuer.

When Ferdi reached the ground, Pip had already been wrapped in blankets and was on his way at full gallop to the Great Smials in the arms of one of the searchers. Ferdi and Veri accepted the congratulations of the other searchers. Veri detailed someone to bury the remains of the dog, faithful guardian, and then he and Ferdi unhobbled their ponies and set off for the Smials at best speed.